ICO or NO? Ep. 5 Tezos

In this episode of ICO or NO, Jeremy goes over what went down with the Tezos ICO, an ICO that already took place and pulled in a whopping $232 million dollars. Tezos claims to have it’s own self-amending blockchain-based platform, but can it keep up with it’s competitors? Jeremy also addresses the controversy surrounding the project, but is it enough to scare investors away?

What is the Tezos project & what problems does it hope to solve?

Tezos isn’t just a new cryptocurrency; it’s a whole new blockchain-based platform that claims to be “self amending.” The project is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that can execute smart contracts in its unique language, with the additional functionality of checking the validity of those contracts.

What is the market for this project?

At first glance it might be kind of tough to distinguish the differences between Tezos and Ethereum. The main difference is that Tezos aims to focus on the validity of smart contracts, making sure code is secure and correct. However, it’s important to note that many issues with smart contracts don’t come from the actual bad code, but rather the unintended and unforeseen consequences of good code being misinterpreted.

I think it’s pretty clear that Tezos is attempting to be a “better” Ethereum. That’s a really tall order because of the established foothold that Ethereum already has in the market, solidified by the fact that so many emerging projects are using Ethereum. (Check out the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance and ERC20 token projects, all of which use Ethereum.)

A major issue that many projects are facing is how to increase scaling in order to meet increasing demand. Both Bitcoin and Ethereum have had to face this problem head on, so it only makes sense that other projects should be aware of this potential hurdle. Unfortunately, this is why I was kind of disappointed when I looked at Tezos’ plans for scaling which were largely incomplete and left much to be desired.

Additionally, several key words used by the Tezos’ project allude to a real-life historic experiment that disproved the existence of physical “ether.” We get it… They’re your competitors but even that seems a little bit petty…

It’s really important to be aware of the actions of your main competition, but at a certain point it becomes counterproductive to spend so much of your energy concerned about competitors as opposed to simply focusing on making your project the best that it can be.

Who’s the team behind Tezos?

A lot of these projects are trying to make themselves more accessible by creating their own Slack channels, a place where interested people can come and learn about the project, interact and ask questions, and receive general announcements about the project or ICO.

It’s a great way to get to know the team behind the project, and I’ve learned a lot from hanging out in different projects Slack channels. And this is why I was so disappointed when I checked out Tezos’ Slack channel. What could have been an informative, beneficial discussion has completely devolved into a chaos. And this is no one’s fault but the creators of the project.

Instead of answering legitimate questions, the couple has chose to belittle and demean those that voice completely legitimate concerns. It got so bad that multiple Redditors have expressed that they were even afraid to asking questions, out of fear that they would just be made fun of.

It’s important to note that the Slack channel has since been closed down and its history completely wiped, due to “excessive spam and phising attacks” which I found to be an odd excuse considering I’ve successfully used Slack channels to help avoid phishing attacks and spam. It just seems like a convenient excuse to get rid of some prior conversations that you’re not so proud of…

What was the design of the ICO?

Since the crowdsale has already occurred, we’ll spare you the minute details and let you know what went down at the time of the ICO.

Unfortunately Tezos opted for an uncapped ICO, or as I like to call it, “Let’s grab as much cash as we can because this may be our last chance…”

Some of these numbers that these ICOs are raising are out of control. For contect, in Silicon Valley, any project looking for funding would be ECSTATIC with receiving $50 million in funding, as that usually sustains the projects funding for 5 to 10 years. These ICOs are raising over five times that amount, all for projects that are relatively young and undeveloped.

I get why they opted for this type of ICO; most people will take as much money as you are willing to give them. However, some in the community have labeled these practices as greedy and irresponsible.

Another bit of info that has been circulating around the cryptospace is that Tezos, which raised some of its funds in Eth, is selling off massive chunks of its competitors currencies in a way to decrease the value of Ether. At best this a questionable practice, and again shows me that Tezos might be too concerned about beating their competitor, while they should be concerned about putting the best project out there.

So there you have it! That’s our review of what went down with the Tezos ICO. There’s definitely some controversy around the project, so let me know your thoughts down below in the comments. As always leave your questions or feedback down there as well.

ICO or NO covers some of the hottest tokens sales from the coolest projects! Jeremy, though his patented Four Question System*, dissects each project to help you better understand the token sale! Check out more of our ICO or NO episodes here, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for future ones!

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